


Knife to a Gunfight

by florahart



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Clint Barton is never ever unarmed, Gen, Neither is Bruce, canon-typical violence in which only thugs end up in pain, pizza solves everything, you might infer Clint/Coulson if you wanted to
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-01
Updated: 2014-09-01
Packaged: 2018-02-15 16:35:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,124
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2235936
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/florahart/pseuds/florahart
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Clint has, with no intent to be in an anythingfight, brought a knife to a gunfight.</p><p>Fortunately, this isn't an impediment.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Knife to a Gunfight

**Author's Note:**

> Written to fill a prompt at Avengerkink. Prompt was the dialogue: _You brought a knife to a gunfight/Ha! No dude, YOU brought a gun to a Hulk fight._ Edited a little since anonypost.

Of course they're in an alley where no one else can see them, between a loud fucking generator and an obnoxiously yammering crowd in the pub on the other side of the wall, where even if they holler no one's really going to hear it as a cry for help. _Of course_ they are.

Clint sighs. This is just unfair. It was a simple meal, burger and beer after a ballgame, and duh, obviously he does not take his bow with him to a ballgame; that would just be weird. Clearly. Which he knows because Phil told him, and then so did Nat. Fine, whatever, now he knows they were both wrong, which is a nice change of pace except for how it's a problem right now. Anyway, moving on.

So what he has is, he has his pocketknife. Okay seriously, stadiums have issues about people coming in with more ordinary weapons (read: guns), and he would like to review: _ballgame_ , which Clint mostly goes to so he can critique the aim of, oh, everyone.

Shut up, it's fun. This was supposed to be fun. Like, you know, _fun_ , that thing one has with a friend. Which it took like nine weeks to talk Bruce into because he's apparently totally convinced he is not a good person to be around, which, whatever, Clint's sure hanging out with Bruce, no matter the outcome, would not be in his top ten (maybe top fifty) terrible life choices, and hey, his whole job is 99 and a half percent waiting patiently so he had skillz to apply on the whole gentle persuasion thing. Plus, besides that Bruce's sarcasm matches Clint's sense of humor nicely, Phil's been encouraging him to make actualfacts friends who are not spies or snipers, and the pool of qualifiers is pretty limited. So he was persistent, and victorious: ballgame! burger! beer!

But now here they are being stalked by thugs behind a noisy bar with Bruce's eyes dilating as he realizes Clint's more or less unarmed and god dammit, Phil has reiterated _several times_ that they're supposed to be keeping shit on the down-low during excursions and this is not that. At all. There's going to be fucking _paperwork_ about it, probably. Fuck. Course, paperwork is better than getting dead of goon squad, so maybe he'll let them off easy if they don't actually tear up a chunk of city.

So he gets out the pocketknife.

Thug One, who Clint mentally dubs Shitface (his buddy Douchecanoe is a couple of steps back and Jizzbrain is still at the mouth of the alley) sneers and lifts his piece. "You came to a gun fight with a weaksauce little knife!"

Clint rolls his eyes. "Phrase you want is _brought a knife to a gunfight_ , fuckwit. Either way, it's still gonna suck to be you in like ten seconds. Fifteen, tops."

"A knife!" Douchecanoe cracks his knuckles, because apparently Shitface is there for shooting things, and DC is there to be intimidating? What the fuck. Jizzbrain just looks menacing from thirty feet, stroking the stock of the rifle cradled in front of him. God, it's not even aimed at anything. Just unfuckingprofessional, is what that is.

"Yeah, but you guys..." Clint glances over at Bruce and grins. "You guys brought two guns and like seven percent of a brain collectively to a _Hulk_ fight." He chucks the knife, stabbing straight through the thumb joint of Shitface's gun hand, then backpedals hard so Bruce has room to maneuver. "All yours, Big Green."

Bruce snorts and tosses the shirt he spent the duration of Clint's distraction unbuttoning. "Hang onto this? I'm sick of tearing 'em up." And then he grows.

It's as impressive to watch as ever--it's one of the things Clint just plain _likes_ about Bruce, that he has all this barely-controlled rage all the time, and when he chooses, he lets it out and it forms a literal being. That's _awesome_ , legit.

Shitface is too busy clawing at the blade separating his thumb to parse what he's seeing, but Douchecanoe is already sprinting to the mouth of the alley, and okay, Clint's having none of that. He picks up a trash can lid and hurls it, whacking the guy in the back of the knee to take him down just as he reaches Jizzbrain, leaving them to fall in a pile together. It's not like Hulk couldn't catch him, but come on, that's just embarrassing, being an intimidator that flees like a fucking mouse that just noticed its house got a cat.

It's over in nine seconds from the time the knife leaves Clint's hand—woot! efficiency! Shitface's thumb joint is joined in its brokenness by his shoulder joint, his jaw, and both knees. Douchecanoe literally shits his pants and then sobs so hard even Bruce, half-changed as he is into Hulk, feels for him and just thumps him on the head and leaves him there. Jizzbrain fires one shot at Hulk's throat and then when it has no effect faints dead away, so Hulk thumps him a little harder.

He turns back to Clint. "Hulk smash," he says, his voice only a shade lower than Bruce's because he's only just changed and all the rage-inducing elements have been removed already. "More smash?" he adds curiously, big head tilted off to the side.

"Only if ya wanna. You can just bring Bruce back out if you're ready, though. These idiots were no match for you." Clint yanks the blade free of Shitface's hand and grabs a handful of the dude's hair to break his nose and/or knock him out on his knee. "I guess you don't want to go into the bar?"

Hulk sighs heavily and turns to go, then glances back and beckons Clint forward. "No. Hulk and Hawkguy go home. Hulk have beer in Bruce fridge."

"Sweet." Clint gets out his phone and dials Pepper. "Hey, so we just laid out three guys behind a bar. You got my GPS? Cool, send 'em an ambulance." 

Pepper, because apparently a decade or so of Stark-wrangling pays off, doesn't even pause. "On it."

"You rock. Tell Phil we'll be back in a while. Hulk apparently thinks we should have beer together at Bruce's place, and I mean, what could possibly go wrong?" He ends the call before she finishes the little squeak he'd been hoping for, and jogs to catch up with Hulk. "You got beer, we gotta have pizza, right? Pepperoni?"

Hulk snorts. "Bruce vegetarian." He rolls his eyes. "Bruce have mushroom."

Clint nods and starts calling in the order, grinning. See? Hanging out with Bruce: _totally fine_ , and he can prove it. As far as he's concerned, the evening is a success.


End file.
